Halford & Brough in the Morning - Big Roster Moves For The Canucks

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

In hour one, Mike and Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they talk some big roster moves yesterday for the Canucks including Phil Di Giuseppe getting waived (6:00), plus the boys discuss the latest hockey stories with Sportsnet NHL host David Amber (27:39). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Happy Wednesday, everybody. It's Alfred and his bruv at Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Andy, good morning to you. Good morning. Greg, good morning to you as well.

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Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews Sophie what are you waiting for Kintec I'm gonna suggest that everyone start getting their what we learns in

right now Dunbar Lumber text line 650 650 we had a super early submission 549 a.m. Lance, the lone listener in the Mac, he texted it. He was so excited to tell us what we learned. He couldn't even wait for the show to start.

5.49 a.m. he texts in. What we learned. After listening to your podcast yesterday, Halford couldn't figure out what season any sports were in or just any words in general. Maybe if he wrote it down and practiced it like Dollywall, he could still struggle and still get it wrong, but at least he would have practiced first. Sounds about right.

That's a nice way to start your day, huh? I replied. Some harsh criticism. That's one of those semen submissions I was talking about yesterday. Boy, you just said it rather starkly there, didn't you? Anyway, get your What We Learns in. Submit away. Dunbar Lumber text line, 650-650.

That's something to hear in the morning. 602 in the morning. Bam. You can get away with it in the first, like, 10 minutes. No one's listening. Look, let's be honest. There is a cutoff, though, eventually. That'll wake you up.

And everyone on this list is like, I know what he's talking about. The purge. The first 10 minutesoff though eventually. That'll wake you up. And everyone that's listening is like, I know what he's talking about. The purge, the first 10 minutes of the show, no rules. Big show ahead on a Wednesday here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. David Amber is going to join the program at 630 Sportsnet Hockey Night in Canada. We're going to talk about the

most injury riddled preseason in NHL history. Another wild game last night between the Habs and the Sens. A bunch of guys got hurt in that one as well. Makes sense that JT Miller doesn't want to participate in this thing. We'll talk to David Amber at 630. He's terrified.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to either. Bloodbath out there. 7 o'clock. Now this is kind of cool. Gentleman by the name of John Parato is going to join the program. He's a baseball writer for Pittsburgh Baseball Now. Now you might be thinking, wait a minute, Halford and Brough. Why are you talking baseball in Pittsburgh?

Because there's no baseball in Pittsburgh right now. They didn't make the playoffs. There's barely any during the regular season. John Parato has covered the Pittsburgh Pirates for 37 seasons. In those 37 seasons, they have had 30 losing seasons, seven winning seasons, and not a single postseason series victory. They've not won a series. Well, he did win.

Well, the Pirates, while he was covering them, did win one wild card game. But that doesn't count as a series. It was like a single game series so he's not counting that so as the commissioner of the sad club known for losers yeah thought wait a minute we should talk to this guy he said and i quote i may be the losingest baseball writer in history so what better guy to get on the halford and brough show than john parato he's gonna join would you like to join the sad club let me show you what it is no the pirates won the

world series in 70s right like that and i think and i think this is uh this is actually going to be a conversation beyond just talking to a guy that's covered a losing team it's it's and it's almost central to if you're a seattle marin fan, you might want to listen to this because we're going to talk about an organization in the Pittsburgh Pirates. Nice stadium. The owner makes money every year. They got a superstar player. You know, well. For now.

Yeah. But, you know, because of the way that baseball's economics are set up with revenue sharing, what is the motivation for some teams to win? Yeah. Why bother even keeping Paul Skeens? If the owner doesn't really care about winning a World Series, and if the owner is just happy to keep making a nice little profit every year as franchise values keep going up, what's the solution there? So John Proud is going to join us

at 7 to talk about that. Very fitting because it was the opening day of the Major League Baseball postseason yesterday as well. 7.30, Manny Viveros, head coach of the Vancouver Giants, is going to join us. Giants regular season is underway. They lost their last game 6-3 to Prince George. They're back in action

this Friday at the Langley Events Center against Kamloops. So we'll talk to Manny about that at 7.30. We can also get some intel from Greg, who's been out there at the Langley Events Center as well. 8 o'clock, ex-NHLer Brett Festerling is going to join the program. Sportsnet 650 Canucks color analyst. We'll talk to him about some pretty significant moves that the Canucks made to their roster on Tuesday.

We're going to get into that and what happened. As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to work in reverse on the. We're going to get into that in what happened. As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to work in reverse on the guest list. Let's get into it right now. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened?

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The Vancouver Canucks, as I mentioned off the top, announced a series of roster updates on Tuesday. Sad news for A-Dog and A-Dog Nation. Jonathan Leckermacki on his way to Abbotsford. He will not make the opening night roster. He, along with Elias Pettersson, the defenseman version, Linus Carlson, Elias Pettersson, Ty Mueller, Max Sasson, Christian Felton, Cole McWard, Kirill Kudryatsev, and Nikita Tolopio. Now, the big news of the day,

probably that forward and veteran forward Phil DiGiuseppe has been exposed to waivers for the purpose of trying to get him down to Abbotsford. No clear sign that PDG will make it down there. Aaron Portsline of The Athletic in Columbus already making note on Twitter that Columbus is scouring hard on the waiver wire looking for NHL caliber forwards, and PDG could be a fit there.

We'll see what happens. Well, Portsline actually, yeah, he name-checked PDG. He said, keeping a close eye on the waiver wire this week, looking for a veteran NHL forward. Columbus is doing that. And then Aaron says, one name caught my eye on Tuesday, Phil DiGiuseppe, who was waived by the Canucks, has played in 282 NHL games with Carolina, Nashville, the New York Rangers, and Vancouver.

So the biggest news as far as the Vancouver Canucks roster year over year goes, because PDG was a pretty regular fixture last year, 51 regular season games, the most he's ever played in a regular season, 11 playoff games, including that sort of famous goal in game five against the Oilers which was followed by his very emotional interview that he did talking about the difficulties of the birth of his second child so let's go to Rick Talkett now because Talkett acknowledged yesterday it was a difficult decision to part ways potentially with PDG who is on waivers may or may not be going to Abbotsford here's Rick Talk talking on the move. Yeah, I mean, he's a solid guy.

He's had a really good camp. There's numbers involved. There's a lot more to it. You know, the cap and this and that. There's a lot of, you know, LTR is over my head. But, you know, I don't think, you know, I hope he doesn't get picked up, to be honest with you. But he's a guy that I still think if he doesn't get picked up to be honest with you um but he's a guy that i still

think if he doesn't get picked he's in the mix like uh you know so you know he's a he's just an unreal guy so that's a tough one talk it sounded a bit like you trying to explain all the uh complications with setting the opening day roster he's like lti is it lti lti is that what's what they call it there's escrow involved i don't know either. We're accruing cap space as we speak. So I do feel bad. Like DJ Seppi was a nice story last year. He's been a nice story for a while. Yeah, quite famously, he broke camp and was all of a sudden the winger with Besser and Miller

and was producing at a fairly healthy clip at the beginning of the year and then sort of tailed off. The pace wasn't sustainable. He did appear, as I mentioned, in about two-thirds of the playoff games and scored in the playoffs, his first ever Stanley Cup playoff goal. But, as Rick Talkett said, one, it's a numbers game, and two, he talked about the depth and how maybe a difficult decision like this

wouldn't have been on the table a couple of years ago because they didn't have guys pushing internally to force guys like PDG out yeah do we have that audio right now let's play that right now from Rick Talkett where he's talking about how things are different now in Vancouver well yeah I mean Ratz Centerman uh takes draws um you he's, you know, you look at guys like, can it be sustainable? You know, there's a couple of coverage things he made. It wasn't mistakes. It's stuff that he's going to have to learn. So whether it's here or in average, you know, he's making hard decisions.

That's the one thing. Two years ago, you know, there wasn't really hard decisions. Now there are. So, you know, you've got to credit Jim and Patrick for creating it, and RJ, Brian Johnson, creating more depth than harder decisions. Now there are. So you've got to credit Jim and Patrick for creating it, and RJ, Brian Johnson, creating more depth than harder decisions. Two years ago, I don't think there was many hard decisions. So some guys that are still left, still fighting for a spot on the opening night roster are Aturatu.

Rots. Rots. Rats. Ratty, as Taka mentioned. But Archeteep Baines is still with the team as well. He, of course, got a little bit of action with the club last season. He scored in the preseason. It's funny, we were talking about this the other day.

We almost forgot about him because we were so focused on the other young guys that are now with the club. Well, Ratu's been with the club, but we're now just talking about him because he's had such a good offseason and he's come in, his skating looks better and he's been playing a lot better and he's put himself into the mix to make this team. Lekermackie was a story early on at Young Stars and early in the preseason. I don't know if the Canucks ever really seriously considered having him on the team to start the season. Maybe they did, but I think the best move for him is to go down to Abbotsford and see how he does, get used to North America and North American style of hockey.

And maybe he's a mid-season call-up. Maybe he's a guy that you you know, you can say, well, he's their trade deadline pickup or whatever. I mean, that's getting ahead of ourselves. He's got to go down there. He's got to play. And Rick Taka mentioned, you know, he needs to win more 50-50 puck battles.

And that makes sense. Look at the guy. He's not massive, right? He's going to have to get a little bit stronger, get a little bit smarter when it comes to the North American AHL, NHL game. And hopefully that will come because we all know what he does do well, and that is shoot the puck. And, you know, I think he's got a future here in Vancouver.

He's just going to take some time. So the Canucks only have one preseason game left, and that's going to be Friday at home against the Edmonton Oilers. And they still have some decisions to make because it could be. Now, there's all sorts of complications here because now we hear like Suter didn't practice yesterday so what's his status is is he a little banged up um we know JT Miller still hasn't played a preseason game he's expected to play Friday hopefully he'll play Friday we haven't spent a

lot of time on this topic because we don't think it's a particularly big deal. But if it does become a big deal, we definitely will. But if you're looking at numbers on the Canucks, if they don't want to go into LTI and they will essentially be carrying injured players like Thatcher Demko, Dakota Joshua, and Tucker Pullman on their roster. Right. What people are speculating about, and it just makes sense from a numbers perspective, is they could open the season with just one extra healthy player. So it could be they've got 12 forwards to start the season. Okay.

No extras there. And remember, they play their first two games at home. Mm-hmm. Seven defensemen and then two goalies. Possibly. Sure. They might go into LTIR. Right.

They might feel that they have to do this. Right. In order to set their best possible roster and get off to a good start to the season. But if it is that 12 forwards thing, then to me, I'm looking at the math and I'm going, okay, well, there's one spot probably for either Atu Ratu, Nils Amon, or Arsh Steve Baines.

Right. And that's kind of what it's going to be. It's not a set roster yet. And like you said, it's not the most exciting radio to talk about the one-man roster permutations or a guy getting sent down or papered down the day before the season starts and then magically reappearing the day after.

But the big takeaway, and this is interesting because Mike, the urologist from Brockville, texted in. He pushed back a little bit on PDG being a great story last year and said, PDG's success last season was a reflection of the lack of depth on the wing rather than his ability. I disagree with that. I think PDG did a good job of helping set the new culture under Rick Taukett. I think I pushed back on it as well. I do think there's probably something to it is that part of the reason

that he was able to play in the most games that he's ever played in the NHL at the age of 30 had a little bit to do with the opportunity that was in Vancouver. And by that, I mean, we talked at length last year. How many good wingers does this team have? How much depth do they have on the wing? How much depth do they have a forward

period? And we didn't exactly know where it was going to come from. We hoped, I't exactly know where it was going to come from. We hoped, I think everyone hoped, that it was going to come from within because that was sort of the program that Alvin and Rutherford built in Pittsburgh. Someone texted in, Can you guys explain the reasoning why Tucker Pullman wouldn't be on LTIR? I don't understand the reasoning for that when he's definitely not going to be able to play. This is something that we've been talking about way too much for two guys that barely understand

the salary cap. The Canucks don't really want to go into LTIR because then you can't accrue cap space. And if you don't spend to the limit, then you get to accrue cap space and it builds up and it builds up. And it may be a minimal number at the end of the day that you've accrued. It might be less than a million dollars, but it's still something.

And then at the trade deadline, what you could in theory do is then go into LTIR and then you've got that space for Tucker Pullman. So if they, if they don't have to, they'd rather not, but I suppose it's not the end of the world if they do. The Edmonton Oilers are in a similar situation with Evander Kane. A lot of people might think, well, he's automatically going to start the season on LTIR, right? Not necessarily.

Right. Not necessarily. Okay, so there's your Canucks story as we kind of wait now. I do want to touch on one other thing, though, before we move along to injuries, because this is a nice bridge. As a matter of fact, JT Miller did speak yesterday about what's going on. I wouldn't say that it's like a full-blown crisis or anything like that in terms of like concern or worry from media and fans we've mentioned it a couple times but sort of with a shrug of our shoulders and even when we've done that people have pushed back being like there's nothing to shrug about it's no big

deal a couple things happened last night or yesterday that put this picture into some clearer context one is Miller talking about exactly what's going on himself. So without further ado, here is number nine for your Vancouver Canucks, JT Miller talking about why he hasn't played so far, when he's going to play and what's going on with his health.

Just kind of been taking care of something and not forcing it. You know, we've had a luxury of having some time over the last two weeks. So I just try to be smart. Should be a good deal. I've just been taking care

of myself and not forcing it and I'll be ready to go Friday. That's that's me being about as honest as I can. So there you have it. Now, I do wonder if part of this has to do either with an abundance of caution or looking around the league and seeing what's going on right now and realizing that abundance of caution is absolutely the way to go

because the preseason is too long and means nothing to nobody. So, for example, yesterday, the Montreal Canadiens played the Ottawa Senators in a game that means nothing in the standings and counts for nothing at the end of the day. A bunch of guys left that game injured because a bunch of guys were going around headhunting each other because bad blood spilled over. So it all began in the first period when,

remember Ridley Greig, Ridley Greig, however we want to pronounce his name, doing the slapper into the empty net well he decided to get under the skin of the habs yesterday with a very high hit on kirby dock that drew the ire of montreal for a couple reasons one docs had a long history of injuries he missed almost all the last year two in their previous game the habs watched patrick line get taken out with a very questionable hit. So they were already on tilt, right? They were already on edge. So they chased Greg around for the remainder of the first period.

They tried to exact their revenge. Doc actually fought him later in the game. And then Greg had to leave because he got beaten up pretty bad. But they weren't done there. Midway through the second period, Arbor Jack guy decided that he was going to take matters into his own hands again. Cause remember he was the one that jumped Cedric Paré after he hit Patrick line.

It, he Jack, I hit Tim Stutzle with an incredibly vicious chicken wing elbow to the head. Like, you know, it's being reported via Frank Sir Valley, no discipline on it.

That's crazy to me. That is crazy. So Stutzle has to leave the game with a head injury. Brady Kachuk, who jumped into the defense of Tim Stutzle, he got hurt fighting. Arbor Jack guy. So Jack guy takes out two of the Sens best players in one instance. So you're talking about a game in which three players leave due to injury.

And that was after the Montreal Canadiens announced that David Reinbacher was going to be gone for five to six months because he had knee surgery. And Patrick Laine was going to be gone for two to three months. Not a torn ACL on the hit, but a knee sprain that's going to keep him sidelined. Drew Dowdy got hurt. Yes. In the preseason and late last night in San Jose. The first overall pick in the NHL draft, local boy, Macklin Celebrini. Did he take a fall into the boards? Yep.

They were playing against Utah in an exhibition game, 13-minute mark of the second period. Celebrini went in for a breakaway. He was tripped from behind. He crashed into the boards. He returned to finish his shift, played another minute, and then left the second period. Celebrini went in for a breakaway. He was tripped from behind. He crashed into the boards. He returned to finish his shift, played another minute, and then left the game entirely.

He was wincing in pain on the bench. There's another injury. Oh, but wait, we're not done yet. Another preseason game, another key injury for the Rangers this time because Artemi Panarin exited Tuesday's game against the New Jersey Devils with a lower body injury in the first period. This is the second time in the preseason

that Panarin has left a game with an injury. So this translates nicely into our next topic, and that is the Board of Governors meetings because they were asked, Gary Bettman was asked yesterday down in New York, would the NHL consider shortening the preseason? And to make a long story short, I think the answer is going to be yes with a but. And the but would be that the regular season would be longer. And that's exactly what happened with the NFL a little while ago.

They shortened the preseason by a game, but they added on a regular season game. And that's why we now have a 17-game NFL season. Perhaps the bigger picture news in all this is that the NHL's CBA doesn't expire until the summer of 2026. So that's like almost two years from now. But the league is hoping to start negotiating with the PA as soon as this new year, January 1st, 2025.

And Gary Bettman even said, if we had this thing done by, you know, the Stanley Cup final, and he said, my media availability at the Stanley Cup final, you know, he said, that's not a discussion in terms of the timetable that I've had with Marty Walsh, who's now in charge of the PA. And he said, so I don't want to put any unfair parameters on it. It'll be what it'll be. But I think based on the status of throw a wrench into any possible CBA negotiations would be the topic of expansion fees. If the players go for them, if the players say, we want a cut of the expansion fees, there's going to be a problem.

If they don't, I think they should be able to get it done. When they cut the revenue share, you remember the original salary cap, they had the revenue share something like, I don't know, I can't remember what it was, but it was like, I want to say like 57% towards the players and 43% towards the owners. That caused, you know, that was the lost season. And they came back with that. And then the NHL and the next CBA went, we want even more. And they cut it down to 50-50, which in hindsight was probably a good thing because it's just easy.

You know, it's hard for any side to go, well, I want more than 50-50, right? 50-50 just seems like a good split. Owners get 50% of the revenue, the players get 50% of the revenue. But the expansion fees have always been outside of that. They've always been outside the hockey-related revenue. So if the players want that, and that could possibly come after this new cba there could be a problem so i think that would be the thing to keep an eye on because i don't know if they're going to expand the nhl i don't know if they're going to expand until they get a new cba and also gary metben mentioned this

the canadian tv deal is up in a couple of years. And that, of course, features our company, Rogers. And how will that look for the league? And the NBA, you'll remember, said, we're not going to do any expansion until we figure out our rights deal and our CBA stuff. Well, of course, they did that. And there's still no expansion. So that's why a lot of people expect expansion to come kind of suddenly in the nba it's like i thought you

weren't doing this i was like yeah we lied to you we were secretly doing this we're absolutely i do wonder if the nhl wants to take care of business first their cba and the tv rights deal but i think it's going to be interesting to see if the players try and go for any of this expansion money yeah because if i was the owners, I'd be like, no. No, that's our money. That's our money. Like, that's not hockey-related revenue. So we can talk more about this with David Amber on the other side of the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650.

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and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4-6pm weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 632 on a Wednesday. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650.

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Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. What's so funny? Music is amazing. This is pretty good. What was the penalty on Jack Eye for that? Did he get a major? I know he was tossed out of the game, but I don't know if it was for... 27 minutes in penalties.

Right. So the hit, he got a major in a game misconduct, or was it for after the hit when he had to fight that he got thrown out of the game? He had to fight. He didn't really fight all that much. He didn't. Well, Kachuk attacked him. Like he attacked Cedric Par game. He had to fight. He didn't really fight all that much. He didn't. Well, Kachuk attacked him. Like he attacked Cedric Paré.

Kachuk attacks. I know it was 27 minutes in PIMS, all told. Okay. But I don't know the exact right now. Yeah, you got a major. You get a major for interference against Tim Stutzla.

I'm just looking at it right now. For more on... You got to, as it's shortened to on the NHL site, you got a match for that. A match. A match. Oh, a match. AL site, you got to match for that. A match. A match. Oh, a match.

A match. Not a min. Not a min. A match. For more on the bad blood between the Sens and the Habs from last night, let's bring in our next guest, David Ambrose, Sportsnet Hockey Night in Canada host here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

Good morning, David. How are you? Gentlemen, how are you? We're great. Welcome back to the show. It's now October. We're back in hockey season. David Amber is back for his weekly hits.

This is all very good. And hey, look, you get something really juicy to go after right away. Bad blood between the Sens and the Habs spilled over yesterday into their exhibition contest. I want to point that out. Preseason contest. Part of me loves the fact that the rivalry is already up and running and there's no love lost between the two.

Another part of me does not like it because everybody got hurt last night, including two Stutzla, including Brady Kachuk, including Ridley Gregg. And this is going into a game where the Habs were bemoaning the loss of David Reinbacher and Patrick Laine, who also got hurt on a dirty hit in the preseason. So there's a lot to unpack here, David. But all I know is that it was hard not to watch last night, but also hard to watch because of all the injuries that were suffered.

Yeah, and by the way, Ren Lavoie, I don't know if you guys already have this on the show, Ren Lavoie, who's a great reporter for tvi just reported um there will not be a hearing for arbor jack guy so that's the latest there was some speculation maybe he would say some discipline for that little kind of clip of uh but apparently not so uh there's the latest there yeah i think everyone's fed up uh you listen the board of governors are meeting and one of the topics they're discussing is to trim the pre-season down and you know it was different 20 years ago when you know there might have been four or five six spots up for grabs and there was some turnover you know how many how many spots are really up for grabs on any team one two maybe three at the most. You know, it's a pretty long exercise

with pretty high risk for what's actually at stake. You know, I tweeted out after hearing about all these Ottawa injuries, you know, Elliot Friedman, you know, put out the whole tweet about all these guys going down yesterday. And I said, can we just, let's just get two preseason games. You know, you only play, you know, prospects and guys on the bubble. You don't, you know, you discount the tickets. I get no one wants to pay full fare to go see a bunch of AHL players potentially,

but it's just a risky exercise. And now, you know, you didn't even mention Panarin. I mean, Panarin got injured as well last night. So we're talking about a lot of star players potentially missing some significant time, and for what? So, yeah, it's hard to watch for sure, guys. It's not exciting. I mean, I get what you're saying. It's kind of cool that the heated battles

because these teams have history and everything else, but it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, and now we're seeing some key players missing, some of them, some significant time, which sucks. So it was interesting that this all came up at the Board of Governors meeting and Gary Bettman, you know, he didn't, he certainly didn't shoot down the idea of shortening the preseason. But I think if they do, it'll be an 84-game season

as opposed to an 82-game season because these preseason games um they are full of fans and i know they do make revenue um so they'll want to make that up in some way um i was really interested to hear gary betman say we want to get going on this CBA right now and get not right now but January 1st 2025 it doesn't expire until the summer of 2026 and this isn't always how the league approaches this stuff do you think the NHLPA will be open to this or do they hear this and they're like this is a trap so there's something something going here. We shouldn't do this. Well, there is definitely some speculation that expansion is on the horizon. And the NHL would be in their best interest to get a CBA locked in before they announce one or two or, you know, more teams.

Because that's the real cash grab right that is that is the huge cash grab for the owners is when you welcome in you know they welcomed in i think it was vegas at 500 million seattle at 650 utah ryan smith just paid 1.2 billion now that wasn't an expansion fee a million of that went to Morello, that horrible owner in Arizona, to cash him out. And two hundred million, from what I understand, went to the NHL to split between the owners. But that's now the new that's the new rate. So when Houston and Atlanta, et cetera, are coming into the mix, they're going to be coming in at a price tag north of one billion dollars to be split equitably amongst the other 32 owners. Do the players see a sense of that?

Currently, no. So that might be the impetus for the NHL to sort of try to move things along. Listen, I'm all for labor peace. We've had three lockouts in the last, you know, what is it, you know, in Gary Bettman's tenure, we've had three lockouts in the last, you know, what is it, in Gary Bettman's tenure. We've had three lockouts. We don't need another lockout. We don't need labor unrest. It's better for everyone when the game's on the ice.

But I imagine the PA is going to sit back and sort of say, well, hold on a second here. You know, we're not going to be rushed to the negotiation table. You know, it's been made pretty clear that Marty Walsh and the PA are probably somewhat interested in getting some cut of the pie when these expansion teams come in because it's just such huge numbers now and for the players to be left out in the cold for that doesn't serve them well. And their argument's going to be, you know,

even the most mismanaged franchises in the NHL, like take the Ottawatawa senators for example who had a litany of issues between bryden and melnick etc you know the melnick family bought the team for 92 million dollars in august of 2003 think about that 92 million dollars 20 years ago and then they sold it for close to a billion. And it was a franchise that was losing money perennially, was mismanaged on many levels, according to many people close to the situation. And they still got an incredible return on their investment. So if even the worst franchises are going for a billion dollars,

you just have to factor that all in. And that's something that I think the players, you know, want somehow. Franchise values aren't going to go directly to the players because the owners are the ones taking the risk and everything else. But my point is they're making a lot of money on their franchises and the players are probably saying, you know, we want a little bit of a bigger slice of the pie, you know, moving forward in some capacity to, you know, equate what we are

bringing to the table. I find it hard to believe that the owners would even have time to discuss that. It would just be a quick no. Yeah, I mean, listen, it wouldn't shock me and that could be what causes some sort of problems. I mean, what I'd love to think, you know, none of us civilians here, you and me and all the fans who are, you know, normal peasants compared to these guys, like, it's not a lot of fun watching billionaires and multimillionaires fight against each other. It really isn't.

And hopefully they'll find enough common ground, you know, to make this work. And Marty Walsh and Gary Bennett seem to have a good relationship, and there certainly is incredible revenues. The revenues are going up, the salary cap's going up, the escrow's going down, And Marty Walsh and Gary Bennett seem to have a good relationship. And there certainly is incredible revenues. The revenues are going up. Salary cap's going up.

The escrow's going down. The values of the franchise are going up. There should be enough common ground for everyone to be satisfied and happy. So I'm not going in with a pessimism there. I just think that both sides are going to sort of dig their heels in a little bit. And we'll see where it comes out. You know, I'm not even, I can't believe this is where we're starting. My first visit of the year, we've got the NHL starting next week,

and we're getting into labor talk. It's not my fault they scheduled the Board of Governors yesterday. That's on them, not us. Yeah, that's true. But I'm hopeful. Listen, guys, I'm hopeful things will get sorted out, and I can understand why the NHL would want to expedite this, and that would be great. Listen, if they can come to some common ground, it's great for everyone, mostly the fans, so let's just do it. We're speaking to David Ambrose, Sportsnet NHL would want to expedite this. And that would be great. Listen, if they can come to some common ground, it's great for everyone, mostly the fans.

So let's just do it. We're speaking to David Amherst, Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, David, the regular season, it will begin next week. When things get underway, let's call it for real on Wednesday because that's when we get the six Canadian teams in action in that triple header on Wednesday night, which you'll be hosting.

Let's circle back to Montreal and Ottawa for a sec here because they finished 7th and 8th in the division last year. Those are the two bottom positions in the Atlantic, but both are looking to make that push, if not to a playoff spot, then at least closer than they were last year, which was nearly 20 points out. If you had to pick one of the two right now that's more likely to be a playoff team this year, which Canadian

team would it be? Would it be Montreal or would it be Ottawa? Ottawa. That's an easy question. I'm not sure Ottawa is going to make the playoffs, but I think the additions they've made are significant. They had all marks, so they brought in sort of a world-class goalie or a legitimate

goalie, a guy who's performed well at the highest level and, you know, a FESNA winner just a year ago. They brought in some Stanley Cup pedigree, David Perron and Nick Cousins, you know, guys who've won. Amadio even won in Vegas. So they brought in some guys, a little bit of an older, mature group. They brought in a new head coach who's going to be focused on discipline

and structure and accountability and Travis Green. And let's face facts, they have some great young pieces. I don't even know if you call Kachuk a young piece, but the Kachuk, Stutzlers, etc. So there's question marks there and they're in a very tough division,

but I would give the firm advantage to Ottawa and the expectation to Ottawa. Montreal, their big one addition was Patrick Laine, and it's so unfortunate what's happened to him, and we might not see him for a few months now. So it'd be really asking a lot of the Montreal Canadiens, without any significant addition to their lineup, to suddenly make a massive leap.

And if they get great health and Lane Hudson materializes into the type Quinn Hughes-Light or however they want to describe it because he's that good, that's great. But you're asking a lot of all that to come into place in one year. So Ottawa, I definitely think it's sort of playoffs or bust based on all the moves they've made, and let's see what happens. The four teams that did make the playoffs in that division, Florida, Boston, Toronto and Tampa Bay, does any one of those stand out as a

vulnerable team? Maybe Boston is obvious right now because of the goaltending situation there, but any of those other teams, because teams like Buffalo and Detroit are going to be thinking the exact same thing as Ottawa. It's like, we've got to make the playoffs soon. Yeah, you know what? That's a great question. You know, I'm not going to say Florida.

Last year, I made that mistake. You know, they had Montour out and Ekblad out. And they're coming off the Stanley Cup final. Oh, they're going to have a hangover. And I'm like, yeah, I can see Florida missing the playoffs. And then they go on to win the Stanley Cup final. Oh, they're going to have a hangover. And I'm like, yeah, I can just forward to missing the playoffs. And then they go on to win the Stanley Cup. So I'm not going to sleep on them and make that mistake twice in a row. Same with Tampa and Toronto.

I just think they're, you know, and I know Stamkos is left. And I know there's, you know, it's a different feel to this Tampa team. But they just have, you know, they still have Victor Hedman. They still have Vasilevsky. They still have Kucharov, who could have won the MVP. They still have Braden Point. They've added, you know, Gensel. Like, there's still a world-class team,

and Toronto, I think, is still very good as well. So if you maybe pick from the four, I would definitely say Boston might be in the greatest position of vulnerability. This whole thing with Swayman, this is interesting. You know, none of us, you just don't get that dirty laundry aired out ever getting out the popcorn and just digging in on it um and we always kind of keep waiting for the boston bubble to burst right and here you are you know one of their key players and certainly the heartbeat of the team in brad marchand not one not two but I understand three off-season surgeries.

I mean, there's a lot going on there for a guy who's played so many hard games, hard minutes at his size. And listen, I fully expect him to come back and still be fantastic. But my point being, if there is going to be a team maybe with some level of vulnerability, it could be the Boston Bruins between this goaltending situation and their age overall as a group. Yeah. They added Lynn Tomlinson, the door of they, you know, listen, they added some nice pieces.

They locked it, locked Jake, lost Jake to breast, as you guys know, coming your way. And I'm just curious how it's all going to fall into place there. I still think they're an elite team and I would suspect they're going to make the playoffs, but of those four, that would be my choice to have maybe the most question marks coming into the season. We are speaking to David Amber, Hockey Night Canada SportsNet NHL host here on the Alfred and Brough

Show on SportsNet 650. If we look at all the Canadian teams last year, the best Canadian team during the regular season last year, it wasn't Vancouver, it wasn't Toronto, it was the Winnipeg Jets, who had 52 wins and 110 points, and they finished fourth in the NHL overall. Yet every time we talk about the Winnipeg Jets, Ruff and I have the same problem.

We don't know what the hook is. We don't know what the catch is. We don't know what's going to draw us in. When you guys are working. They used to be a good soap opera. Now, I don't know. The storylines have kind of, they're just, we're a good defensive team.

When you guys are doing your pre-scout, you're setting up the week that is, and you got like a Wednesday night game, and you got the Jets. What's the hook? What's the angle? What's the narrative that you guys pursue? Well, that's a good question.

I know what you're saying. They don't have, you kind of look at the other Canadian teams, and there's some more juicy storylines and they're a bit more blue-collar team. Yeah, I mean, they have Connor Hellebach, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, and they certainly have a job between Morrissey and Scheifele. They have some, you know, and Ehlers,

they have some very talented players, but they are a little bit more vanilla. I understand that. What I loved about their team last year, and I was surprised how, you know, sadly they were dismissed by Colorado in the first round. The balance on that team, I thought, was phenomenal. I thought they could run out, you know, they had no problem playing lines one through four.

And there was a great level of balance. And that just all fell apart come playoff time. Listen, I'm not going to, you know, try and paint it differently. It's not a sexy group, per se. but they have a blue-collar approach, and they are made for playoff hockey built from the goaltender route. I do question they lost Nate Schmidt, they lost Brendan Dillon. I do question their blue line because now it's a little bit quieter and a little bit less star-studded than it had been in previous years.

And you're asking for some young guys to step up and play significant minutes and take on a significant role. So, listen, there are some legitimate question marks. And arguably the greatest problem the Jets might face this year, guys, is that division. Look at how strong that division has become, right? It already had Dallas and Colorado at the top, so undeniably two perennial sort of Stanley Cup teams.

And then Nashville has gone out and really gone crazy, adding the likes of Stamkos and Margesville, et cetera, and strengthened their positioning. And they have UC Saros in that. St. Louis is, by all accounts improved and the team that i think is going to be very interesting there is utah um you know in arizona i think the guys would roll in their first training camp and saw they're in this college facility and it was you know they just sort of i think you played a you know you played what the expectations are and it

was just such a mismanaged organization for all these years. And that's not a knock on Bill Armstrong. It had nothing to do with the actual hockey management, but just the overall ownership was such a nightmare. And now they've got proper ownership, a city, a different feel, different expectations. I'm not saying they're going to go out and necessarily make the playoffs, but they're not going to be as easy and out as they've been in previous years.

So I just think the hardest thing for Winnipeg is you're now dealing with arguably, you know, maybe the best division in hockey, at least at the top. You mentioned you question a little bit of Winnipeg's blue line. Do you question Toronto's at all? Yeah, I mean, listen, P uh it's a great addition oel you know i don't think he's going to necessarily perform at the level he did in florida i don't think that's the insulation and the protection and you know i think the hopes from the leaf faithful is he's better than the version we saw in vancouver and um you know if he's not as good as the florida version he at

least provides something that they need and that could be someone just with a bit more offensive catalyst. The Leafs have been in the bottom handful of teams as far as offense from their blue line. Morgan Riley is sort of the one guy that steps up and you think can provide some offense from the back end, but you don't have that with their other players. So it's just not as dynamic an attack.

So that being the case, yeah, there's certainly some questions. I think in the past, it hasn't just been the personnel and do you question the personnel, but it's the system. And one thing about Craig Berube is he is demanding a north-south type of hockey. It's not going to be all the lateral puck possession that we saw under Sheldon Keith. It might be a much more blue-collar,

dump it in the corner and go get the puck. And how that's going to work, I'm not sure. How does Mitch Marner think of that? North-south, I'm more of an east-west guy, Craig. Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't think Mitch Varner is just going to be dumping and chasing. But my point being, I think he's saying, live to see another day. Let's not make as many reckless plays as possible. Let's play a brand of hockey that can provide us success.

It might be a little bit more vanilla and a little bit less exciting. And that could help the defensemen. The defense are going to have to be good because joseph wall anthony stole ours we don't know exactly what we're going to get from them neither of them has been a legitimate full season number one goalie in their careers you're asking these guys to stay healthy and to uh start far more games than they've ever started uh potentially and if it ends up being a 41-41 split, then fine. But I imagine one of the guys is going to have to take the reins

and will start, you know, let's say closer to 50 games. And can they handle that workload? So there are some question marks there. Yeah, that's been the Leafs' question mark for a long time. What about their blue line? And what about their goaltending? And again, we're sort of, it's the exact same line of questioning coming in. But on paper, they added Hawk and Paw.

When he gets healthy, you have a guy who's real physical. He can kind of be the Zdorov for Toronto. And then you have some other guys in Riley and Tanev and OEL, proven NHL players. If Tanev stays healthy, then that's a huge thing for them. So, listen, they feel they've shorted up. They feel it's better than it was last year. And on paper, it is.

But we'll just have to wait and see. David, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it. When you join us next week, we will be previewing Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and then, of course, Calgary and Vancouver for the opener for all six Canadian teams looking forward to it bud thanks for doing this

yeah really exciting time enjoy fellas thanks for having me back on I'll talk to you next week awesome thanks David that's David Amber Hockey Night Canada Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650 you know what we need to do right now we need to make amends with a listener

we do need to break as well yes so uh a listener by the name of paul he's been listening to the show for a long time and paul's hurt paul's hurting real bad he's upset he contends and he might be right that we too often lean on the same texters over and over and over again and read their submissions. By doing that, we maybe ignore the submissions of some other people. Well, Paul, the former listener, all he does is complain about that, though. So send in something that's relevant as opposed to your jealousy of Mike, the urologrologist and the fact that we're reading all his texts. You know why we read his texts?

Because they're well thought out for the most part. Mike is good. And he's a urologist. That's why we read them. And Paul, the former listener, I don't know. There's just a lot of complaining. I don't want to read your texts complaining about one of our texters. Send in better text, man.

Send in better text. Be better. It's the easiest solution. We've got to raise the bar here on the Alfred and Brush show. Raise the hard. You know? You see all the depth that the Canucks have up front? Tough decisions?

We've got tough decisions here, too. We've got a lot of great texters. So, Paul, unless you want to end up on waivers, up your game, man. Got a lot of listener depth. I don't know if we made amends with you. Halford wanted to make amends. I didn't. I also want to add that another bedrock.

Maybe you'll get picked up by Columbus. Maybe you're a better texter for a smaller hockey market. Another bedrock of the Halford and Brough show, losing. We know a lot about it. We know a lot hockey market. Another bedrock of the Halford and Brough show. Losing. We know a lot about it. Yeah. We know a lot about it. Our next guest knows a lot about it as well. John Parato from Pittsburgh Baseball Now is going to join us.

He has been covering the Pirates for 37 years. Over those 37 years, seven winning seasons. If you do the math, that's 30 losing seasons. And he has never seen this team win a postseason series. We're going to talk to John coming up next on the Halford & Brough Show

on Sportsnet 650.